Leaves of the Ages
by AquaAdept
Summary: Sometimes the greatest heroes come from the smallest places. Sometimes you will do anything to change your mistakes. Sometimes you would die for them. Oneshot.


**Don't know what made me do this, now.**

**Anyway, consider this a sort of tribute to one of the most pathetically unknown, yet charismatic, Zelda characters ever. **

**Short, but to the point, I think.**

**Heheheheh…point.**

* * *

With fresh determination, I climb the dark stairs. With every step the air grows colder, and my teeth chatter still more violently in my jaw. My footsteps reverberate off the worn marble. Darkness seems to close in, tighter and stronger, choking me. Several times on the climb I have been filled with such a maddening horror that I would have jumped from the tower itself onto the flagstones below. 

I shudder, drawing my navy cape tighter around my shoulders, and whipping my crimson hair from out of my eyes.

My rapier lies at my belt, ready for the final deed that I must perform. I can not say I am not dreading it; my blood runs cold at the thought. But if I can avert a yet still more horrible fate for all of Labrynna, nay the world, then I will do so.

Please…great goddesses, lend me your strength for the final blow.

But I have barely started, and there are yet more stairs to climb.

* * *

Higher, higher, higher still.

The tower is far taller than it looks. I am high up now, almost among the clouds themselves. The city below is minute, the people specks of dirt.

Why does she want it so high? What is her plan? My mind dwells on that, as her twisted, face flows into focus. She laughs at me, in a crackling, high-pitched voice, and again I have the desire to jump.

But something in me is stronger than her sorcery. I can not say what it is. But it sustains me, feeding me like the root of a tree.

Hmm…I wonder what the Maku Tree will think of all of this…I almost chuckle to myself at the idea of it. But I blanch as the fear pushes at me again.

So cold…

But I will not stop here. Not for her.

* * *

Gradually, the stairs ease off, until a precipice is reached, and within it, a great citadel. I enter quietly, my eyes scanning the darkness. An aura of death hangs in the hall, I can sense it in the air. Wide pillars, decorated with the emblems of my house, adorn a long corridor. The marble floor is covered in a thick, rather luxurious rug. 

Her body is turned from me, and slowly she turns to face me. She stands there now, my own ancestor, her pale, beautiful features twisted by the demon within her. Her grimace is horrible, unsuited to the face she wears. Again the witch leers at me, tilting her head from side to side like a falcon watching its prey.

"You must be... Ralph, of Ambi's line…" she says, pausing as her eyes, her beautiful stolen eyes, fall upon my crimson hair. I grip my sword so tightly my knuckles turn white.

"Be gone with you! Or do you mean to fight me?" she taunts, pulling herself up to her full height, her royal robes making her seem even larger than life. As if in answer I clench my teeth, and raise my sword.

She laughs, this time for real. The tones of my great grandmother's voice ring around the room. "Fool! This is the body of Ambi's, your ancestor. If you slay me, you will vanish from this world! Do you still wish to fight?"

I consider my options, and find there is only one. Running is impossible, and I will never kneel to one such as her.

"Fine!" I shout, raising my sword to its highest height, and flashing it down again in grim decision. The pommel is already soaked with sweat from my hands. "If I slay you I vanish! Maybe it is terrifying… But if I must I must. To do nothing and live just isn't me."

W-would Nayru still know me, even then? Sweat soaks my brow at the thought. Do her powers allow her to see what might have been, even if they never were? Would she see how I found her as a child, lonely and alone? How I spent my childhood playing with her in the green forest?

How we stood beside my father's bed, hand in hand, as he faded from this world? How she sang day by day in the woods as I sat beside her, my heart unable to tell her what I desired the most?

Would she know I loved her more than my own life?

Perhaps not. I doubt even the goddess after which she is named would be able to see that…

I find myself speaking again, in a voice that is strangely different from my own. "Then it means nothing! I will destroy you!" I tilt my sword into the ready position, my arm tensed. "To protect the people of this age…"

My mind hovers for a split second on the image of a young woman, her heart-shaped face framed with azure hair, a small harp held under her arm. She smiles gently, and I accept my fate.

For her.

"…and to protect Nayru!!!" I finally bellow, as I brandish my rapier into the sorcereress's face. I draw myself back, my face flushed with determination, then charge forwards.

There is a flash of blinding light.

…And the world goes dark.

* * *

**And there you have it. Ralph from Oracle of Ages was great. Look him up. Or at least read the manga (check Zelda Legends). **

**Reviews?**

**Spot mistakes for cookies :)**


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